Review of Coveted, by Shawntelle Madison

Description from Goodreads:For werewolf Natalya Stravinsky, the supernatural is nothing extraordinary. What does seem strange is that she’s stuck in her hometown of South Toms River, New Jersey, the outcast of her pack, selling antiques to finicky magical creatures. Restless and recovering from her split with gorgeous ex-boyfriend, Thorn, Nat finds comfort in an unusual place: her obsessively collected stash of holiday trinkets. But complications pile up faster than her ornaments when Thorn returns home—and the two discover that the spark between them remains intense.

Before Nat can sort out their relationship, she must face a more immediate and dangerous problem. Her pack is under attack from the savage Long Island werewolves—and Nat is their first target in a turf war. Toss in a handsome wizard vying for her affection, a therapy group for the anxious and enchanted, and the South Toms River pack leader ready to throw her to the wolves, and it’s enough to give anybody a panic attack. With the stakes as high as the full moon, Nat must summon all of her strength to save her pack and, ultimately, herself.

Review:
This was not very good. It was simply dull and inconsistent. One moment the narrator was going on about how Nat had no friends, the next her best friend was showing up on her doorstep. One moment she’s being treated like a pariah by her family, the next they’re there for her. (And visa versa, they flipped several times.) For the whole book Nat was completely spineless, super subservient and inferior to everyone, then she randomly whipped out the alpa attitude.

Then there was all the back and forwards with Thorn. The fact that he abandoned her five years earlier and basically ruined her life wasn’t ever addressed. This irritated me on two fronts. First that the loss of a man ruined her life and no one seemed to blame him for the dick move or give her time to grieve. (Instead they made her condition significantly worse by being inconsiderate and then further blamed her for the predictable results). Second he was never expected to apologize or even explain and she instantly forgave him. Worse, she’d been waiting for him for 5 years without word and didn’t seem to need to forgive him.

This forgiveness for men carried over in the whole book. Nat was thrown out of the pack and practically disowned by her family for not behaving just as they want (they called it being weak). But her brother was a womanizing ass, her father a killer, the alpha cruel, and her love was fickle and disloyal. Still, no one ever did anything by praise and support them.

I disliked the book. I can come up with a dozen reasons why, but the main one is that Nat was so weak, and whiny that I basically hated her. I thought her OCD was interesting, but that wasn’t enough to make me warm up to someone so willing to be a doormat and who shows NO GROWTH throughout the book.